


Every Broken Word Unspoken

by embroiderama



Category: White Collar
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-07
Updated: 2012-07-07
Packaged: 2017-11-09 08:58:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/453699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embroiderama/pseuds/embroiderama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Off in his island paradise, Neal keeps tabs on the friends he left, and terrible news hits when he least expects it. What happens after that is even more of a shock. </p>
<p>Please, if you need to, see the end note for a warning that's very spoilery for the story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Broken Word Unspoken

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the "mistaken identity" square in my [](http://hc-bingo.livejournal.com/profile)[**hc_bingo**](http://hc-bingo.livejournal.com/). I was sort of ambushed by this story, and it hurt to write, but I had no choice. The title is from the song "[I Will Remember](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJvHbpfEXRw)" by Over the Rhine.

Neal misses his old phone, the smartphone he had to leave behind in New York, dropped into a trash can on the corner near June's house. Mozzie insists that they keep only burner phones, that they change phones regularly and Mozzie's paranoia has kept them safe so Neal doesn't argue. Once each week, he visits the internet cafe that caters to tourists, buys fifteen minutes of time on a ten year-old PC and runs a few searches just to check on the people he left behind.

The computer time is cheap, and Neal has no shortage of cash, but he keeps himself to fifteen minutes because if he goes beyond that he's tempted to take the risk of emailing Peter, and that can't happen. He buys an iced coffee from the young girl behind the counter and sits down to spend fifteen minutes in New York. None of the websites render very well in the outdated version of Internet Explorer he's forced to use, and the pages load more slowly than he's customed to, but he's learning to cultivate patience. Patience is important.

When he reads the article about FBI agent Peter Burke being killed in a training exercise he feels himself go cold, his insides heavy and still. He can't read anymore, can't focus on the bleary old CRT screen, can't stand to read any further anyway. He stands and leaves, maneuvering through the sparse crowd without touching anybody. Neal leaves his coffee on the table next to the monitor, leaves the computer logged in and ticking off the minutes he paid for, leaves the John Irving novel he was planning to read on a bench in the town square.

He can barely breathe against the weight on his chest, barely swallow, but he keeps his breaths shallow and his strides long as he walks back to the car. Inside, behind the wheel, he can't take the pressure in his chest or the heat pushing from behind his eyes anymore, and he coughs up a sob. A ragged gasp of air. Another sob, and then he has to pull himself together because he can't stay there, parked on the street for as long as it's going to take for him to be able to breathe without wanting to scream.

It's going to take a long time, he can feel that in the pain that swamps his whole body, and so he swallows back the sobs, scrubs his hands over his eyes, wipes his damp hands down his face and takes a breath full of the salt smell of his own sweat and tears. He drops his hands, opens his eyes to the crystalline, sparkling sunshine and blinks away the last traces of moisture until his eyes feel dry and raw. He starts the car and then, both hands on the wheel, drives home so carefully that his movements feel brittle.

Mozzie's not home. He's left the island to do some business, something Neal hasn't wanted to hear about because it felt like a betrayal of Peter, even if Peter told him to run. Inside the cool shade of his house, Neal closes the door and sinks to the floor, lightheaded from the small sips of air his concrete-heavy lungs will allow.

He needs air, needs to breathe, so he pulls in a breath through his mouth, inhaling against the resistance, then pushes it out on a long, tight moan. He repeats the process again. Again, and then he's sobbing into the space between his bent knees. His hands are over his eyes, pressing back against the hot, wet rush of tears, and he can't stop. Can't stop the things his body is doing, can't stop Peter from being two days dead.

Two days, and Neal was swimming and eating and flirting with people he doesn't care about while Peter bled and died and went cold. Two days while Elizabeth was trying to live with her husband being ripped away from her, and at that Neal cries harder, vomiting up sobs until he's not sure if he's breathing too much or not enough but the dark sky behind his eyes is sparkling with stars.

Neal slides sideways against the door until he can curl up on the floor and breathe in the musty sweet grass smell of their doormat. He's not sobbing anymore, can't, but his breaths shake as they move through his chest and his eyes burn like a banked fire. His sinuses throb, and he hates himself for thinking that, for complaining to himself when Peter doesn't exist. Just doesn't exist. And he hates himself for claiming this grief, when Elizabeth has so much more right.

Eventually he stands and walks to his bedroom, all of his limbs feeling sandbag heavy, and cries some more. The cotton bedspread feels cool against his eyes, and as the sun slowly moves across the sky he feels his breaths calm, his eyes dry. He needs to be in New York, needs to be around the other people who loved Peter. Who still love Peter.

He needs this more than he needs the beautiful, false, empty life he has now, more than he needs freedom. This, Neal living the highlife on money covered in old, old blood while his friends work and struggle, this isn't justice, and justice meant everything to Peter. Almost everything. It's clear to Neal what he needs to do, so he showers and dresses and leaves a note for Mozzie. He packs the few things that are truly his and takes enough cash for a last-minute plane ticket and a cab on the other end. A cab, in case he gets that far on his own.

In the airport, tickets in hand and half an hour to spare before he can board his first flight, Neal stands and looks at his little burner phone. He should trash it, and he will, but first he has to make a phone call. He's not worried about getting caught anymore, after all. If a SWAT team doesn't meet his plane on the tarmac, if US Marshals don't have him face down on the floor in the middle of customs, he'll take that cab to the Federal building and turn himself into Hughes or Diana or Clinton. Somebody who will understand why.

He dials Elizabeth's cell, bracing himself for the sound of her grief because he can't shatter, not here, but it rolls to voicemail.

_Hi, you've reached Elizabeth Burke. Please leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as possible._

Her voice sounds clear, sounds brisk and happy, and he wonders if she'll ever sound that way again. He wonders how long it will take. His chest aches, but he forces himself to speak. "Elizabeth, it's me. Neal. I heard what happened, and I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I'm coming home because I have to--" Neal stops for a second and breathes. "I don't care what happens anymore. I'm so s--" Her voicemail cuts him off with a long beep, and he disconnects the call, turns off the phone, throws it in a trash can.

He goes into a restroom and sits on the toilet in a stall, fully clothed and folded in half, his face resting on his knees. He breathes in the comfortable smell of his own clothes and hides in the darkness for a few minutes before leaving the stall and splashing tepid water on his face. There aren't any paper towels so he has to mop at his face with his sleeves, and the knowledge that Peter would laugh if he saw it feels like a knife slipped between his ribs.

It takes three flights to get to JFK, hours on top of hours, and with each flight Neal braces himself for the Marshals to descend on him. They don't. Each take-off, his tear-stuffed sinuses make him feel like his brain is going to explode. It doesn't. Neal drinks plastic cups of mediocre wine, not enough to get drunk, just enough to keep the panic in his belly from rising up and taking over. An airplane is not a good place for a breakdown, especially not these days, and Neal doesn't want to end up in some TSA lock-up. Or on YouTube.

He can't concentrate, can't read. He buys headphones and watches the news on the screen in front of him, hoping and not hoping to hear more about what happened to Peter. But the death of a random FBI agent isn't world-ending news, not to anybody who didn't know him, not anywhere near as important as the latest celebrity marriage breakup and recycled political skirmishing.

Neal looks out at the thick blanket of clouds underneath the plane and wishes that it could all be undone. That Peter could be alive again. That he could be working with him again. That Peter could be _alive_ again because it's untenable that a man like him should be taken away for no good reason. If he had to die, he should've died at ninety years old, in bed with Elizabeth holding his hand. Or he should've died a hero, saving an innocent life, not in some no-doubt-pointless training exercise.

Neal realizes with sick certainty that the training was a punishment, the result of a disciplinary action for letting Neal slip between his fingers. It's his fault; when he got on that plane with Mozzie he killed Peter Burke. He stands up and stumbles down the aisle to the restroom in the first-class cabin, falls to his knees in front of the chemical toilet and throws up sour-tasting wine. His sinuses open up, and the cloying-sweet smell of the chemicals makes him heave again, nothing but bile, and then he slumps against the wall and breathes into his hands until he can stand and make his way back to his seat.

He doesn't have long now until he lands, and he does his best to smile at the flight attendant and tell her that he's fine. He closes his eyes and tries to ride out the waves of grief that rise up through him, tightening his chest and setting up a fierce ache behind his forehead. When the pilot announces that they're approaching the airport, Neal opens his eyes and watches out the window as they break through the clouds and the ground comes into view.

He imagines that he can see Peter and El's house out in Brooklyn, and as they fly over the sprawling graveyards of Queens he wonders if Peter's already in the ground or if he's been cremated. If Peter's completely beyond his grasp already--mentally, physically, spiritually. If there's nothing but a Peter-shaped hole in the world. He yearns to be the kind of person who can believe in heaven. He isn't.

Neal can't leave his seat, can't fall apart strapped into his seat next to some woman he's barely looked at, so he chokes down his tears and his anger. He pushes it deep down into his belly, into the void left by the wine, and bites down hard on the inside of his lip when the plane touches down with a thud and a bounce.

He doesn't see any law enforcement vehicles waiting on the tarmac, but he knows that doesn't mean anything. Deplaning is simple with just the satchel he'd stuffed under his seat, so he leaves the plane and walks down the ramp waiting for TSA or Marshals or FBI or ICE to show up at any moment. Nothing happens. He goes through customs as if moving through a dream, the sense of unreality aided by the fake passport he's still using.

There's no choice about that--he left Neal Caffrey behind, and he has to get through customs before he can go be Neal again. The passport Mozzie acquired stands up to scrutiny, and soon he's following the signs to the exit where he can find a taxi. Grief and anticipation and anxiety are ganging up on him, and his chest is full of concrete again. The hallway is endless, like something from a nightmare, and crowded with people and their luggage. Children are crying, people are talking, innumerable suitcase wheels are rolling and bumping across the tile floor. His breath rasps through his clogged sinuses, the loudspeaker fultiley bleats its announcements, and over it all somebody is shouting.

A man is shouting his name, and Neal stops. _This is it_ , he thinks, and he wishes he'd been able to turn himself in on his own terms but he knows that whoever is behind him is just doing his job. He stops, takes his bag off of his shoulder and lets it drop to the ground. He holds his hands out to his sides because he doesn't want people to be scared, and he can't let anybody get hurt. Especially not when he's here for Peter, who only ever wanted to keep people safe.

He can't hear anything over the rush of blood in his pounding head but he feels hands on his shoulders and prepares himself for the wrench of his wrists being pulled back into cuffs, but that doesn't happen. The man turns him around, urgently but not roughly, and Neal raises his eyes to see who's taking him in.

_Peter._

It's Peter, and Neal wants to gasp but his lungs are rock-solid, he can't get even a sip of air to speak. He blinks his eyes as Peter's familiar features phase out of focus, and then everything goes dark.

~~~

The cacophony of airport sounds filter back into Neal's consciousness, and when he opens his eyes Peter is still there. He's sitting in the middle of a row of connected chairs, perched on the edge of the seat, bent forward with his elbows on his knees, and Neal can see his own feet propped up on the empty seat next to Peter. "What?" Neal says. His throat is painfully dry, and he's not even sure what question he wants to ask. _What's going on? What happened to you? What happened to me? What's real? What's real?_ He starts to push himself up on his elbows, confused to find Peter's trenchcoat laid out on top of him like a blanket.

"Hey," Peter says, his voice soft, "stay put for a minute. You passed out."

"Peter," Neal pleads in the weird, rough voice that doesn't sound like his own.

Peter stands and then crouches down close to Neal. "I know what you thought, but I'm not dead. Obviously." He closes his eyes for a moment then looks away. "It wasn't me. It was some poor kid doing advanced training at Quantico. Twenty-seven years old."

Peter stands up with a wince and looks around. "This is a hell of a mess, Neal. I wish I could put you back on a plane to wherever you came from but the Marshals have our phones tapped. It might take them a little while to listen to last night's audio but if I don't bring you in they will. I'm sorry, Neal."

"Don't be sorry," Neal says, and then Peter doesn't stop him when he pulls his feet down from the chair and sits up. His head aches but he can breathe, real breaths that fill his whole lungs, leave him empty, and then fill again without effort. "I--I can't believe I just keeled over in the middle of the airport."

Peter holds his hand out, and Neal reaches up and takes it--feels for himself that Peter is warm and alive and strong. Peter levers him up to his feet, and Neal leans against him for a long second before straightening up and handing Peter's coat back to him.

"You had a pretty good shock," Peter says, and Neal sees his own pain reflected on Peter's face. "And you look like hell so I'm guessing you've had a pretty bad day or two. We should get some water and food into you because short-term at least, things aren't going to get any easier."

"Not true," Neal rasps, and he thinks Peter must be right about getting some water.

"I'm sorry, Neal. I'm going to go to bat for you, and I know some other people will as well, but I can't promise that I can keep you out of prison this time."

Neal looks at Peter standing next to him--tall and broad and breathing and _alive_ \--and he pulls Peter in close, wraps his arms around Peter's back and holds on. He holds on to what he thought was gone forever, and even if he ends the day in a prison bunk he's still willing to call it one of the best days of his life. "You're alive," he whispers in Peter's ear, "and I need to be Neal Caffrey again, whatever happens."

Peter rubs Neal's back then pulls away, and if his eyes look suspiciously damp Neal doesn't mention it. "Okay. The plan is we go into the office. June's hired you one hell of a lawyer, and your lawyer will be waiting there along with Hughes. And my wife, because I couldn't stop her."

Neal smiles and leans against Peter's shoulder. He feels worn and beaten, and he doesn't know what's going to happen for the rest of the day or the rest of his life, but he has two things he thought were gone. He has Peter, and he has hope. And he's _home_.

**Author's Note:**

> no actual character death, but TW for grief - happy ending


End file.
